by welcome
thereafter, pinpricks gave way to melancholy in the household.
Self-destruction seems to be an aberration peculiar to the human condition. Aren"t
man"s miseries of his making, brought about by his own debilities? And yet, while
lamenting over his shortcomings, he tends to blame it on life! But life seems to understand
man more than he does it. Well, to preclude him from perishing in grief, life infuses in him
hope for sustenance. Besides, by imparting an existential ethos in him to avert the cascade
of tragedy--of human extinction--life seems to countervail itself to keep up its propagation.
Thus, while fate left the Yadagiris to nurse their psychic wounds, life had provided the
balm for their healing.
„What is all my wealth worth when it couldn"t provide warmth to my children!" he
thought, having read the script that life had shown him. „As for my status, isn"t it all in
tatters anyway? What a paradox! My obsession for my children"s glory brought me infamy
that is besides harming their cause. But, where did it all go wrong? Oh, didn't I try to push
them on the track of my biases? Well, all have their latent debilities and imbibed attitudes
and it's only fair to let children sort things out as they grow. What sense does it make for
parents to misshape children as their alter egos? What ignorance, couched in affection! It"s
the possessiveness of the parents that"s inimical to the individuality of the children, isn"t it?"
„What a fallacy the sense of possessiveness is!" shaken, as much by his personal tragedy
as by his reflection, Yadagiri tried to see the paternal role in a fresh light. „Aren"t parents
but mere facilitators to perpetuate the species as per nature"s designs? It"s his ego that
makes man imagine that, without him, his family would be orphaned. Is there anything
more ironical than the falsity of that proposition! Well, left to her, Vasavi could"ve managed
her life far better. Was it not my bias that had undone her? How despairing it is to think
I"ve ruined her life and driven her to suicide. Now let me spare my son at least. That poor
girl was wiser in helping him escape my overbearing influence. But when it came to her
own life, she lost her balance! Oh, though late, she helped open my eyes to make it easy for
her brother."
Despite his sorrow, while Yadagiri felt proud of his daughter, in spite of it, Chandra
changed his mind towards his father.
„Why was I so cut up with my father?" Chandra reasoned. „Well, he was born ugly and
its not his fault, was it? Isn"t birth itself a chancy proposition? Or is not death for that
matter? If we were destined not to be born, wouldn"t our mother have been barren? Why
blame him when it"s our fate to be born ungainly? After all, nature could"ve as well shaped
us after our mother, but it didn"t. Imperfection seems to be in the nature of any repetitive
phenomenon. Won"t some buds of the same bunch blossom better than the others! An odd
bud would be crooked as well! When inequity seems to be the order nature had ordained,
how fair is it to lay blame on my father? Moreover, being a man, is he not entitled to a wife?
Why, am I not craving to take one myself?"
The empathy he felt for his father enabled him to reshape his future. He thus found
himself writing to Rashid.
My dear Rashid,
Forgive me for my long silence. I"m sure you would appreciate my position and
understand my predicament. Just the same, I know I can"t leave matters in a limbo
any longer.
The tragedy shattered us all, to say the least. It"s inconceivable that I would leave
my parents in the near future. Moreover, the bitterness that brought me over there
has given way to the feeling of empathy in my suffering soul. So, I"ve decided to
stay back to take care of my mother and assist my father.
Though I know my move would upset you personally, I have no intention to hurt
(y)our business. I would like you to treat my share as your own. Do treat it as a
measure of goodwill from a friend who got a shelter from you in the hour of his
need.
I hope to see you some day as a prosperous businessman.
I remain, indebted,
Yours ever,
Chandra.
P.S: Please find enclosed the notarized document relinquishing my share in our
business for your record.
Lessons of Life
Chandra"s tentative forays into the Princely Pearls soon acquired the spirit of
apprenticeship. Finding his son grappling with the ropes of marketing, the pleased father
began guiding him to hone his technical skills as well. When Chandra began exhibiting his
business acumen, Yadagiri took him to the recess of the trade secrets.
Soon, seeing his son on course, the father made way for him to manage the show on his
own only spending the evenings at the shop, more to gloat over his prowess than to
supervise his progress. And urged by his newborn aptitude and catalyzed by his zeal to
excel, Chandra became a businessman possessed. But, what with his own attitude to life
having changed, the about-turn in his son"s orientation began to bother the father.
“The art of living is an act of balancing,” said Yadagiri to Chandra so as to put him on
the true course of life. “Nothing upsets life more than a stilted view of it. Was it not my
obsession with status that played havoc with your sister"s life? Enough is enough, now I
won"t allow you turn a workaholic. You should explore youth so that you may understand
life by middle age.”
Chandra was relieved of the post-lunch chores, and soon, he came to temper his work
culture on the anvil of his father's fresh philosophy. With the change in attitude to work
came the urge to live life to the hilt. What with plenty of time to spare and the money to
make use of it, he began to have a go at life, with gusto. Moreover, as by then, the shadows
of gloom were far behind him, the urges of youth came to the fore all again; those
Kamathipura exploits drove him to the Mehendi.
With his new-found ability to look at life in a detached manner, Chandra began to grasp
the vulnerability of the sexes to sexual impulses. What wondered him was that the whores,
mollified though by the madams, had enough spirit left in them to exploit their clientele.
What amused as well as irritated him was that they sought the extra buck for foreplay as
though the deal was only for the final favor! The tendency among some of them to feign
orgasm, though he was hardly in, embarrassing though, infused in him pity for them.
Vexed with the falsity of paid sex, he ceased seeking gratification in the inane recesses of
those crass places.
When he was on the lookout for alternate outlets, a pimp on the prowl accosted him at
the Purana Phul.
“Rare housewife, sir, rarely indulges,” he whispered into Chandra"s inquisitive ears,
“very cooperative at that,” he winked at him.
And Chandra turned tentative.
“Classy maal sir,” he said finding “only when her man is on tour, she takes a detour . ”
“How old is she?”
“Randy thirty,” the pimp paused for a calculated effect on his prey, “but Spencer sir.”
“How much is that?”
“Hundred sir,” said the pimp with a wink, “ for each fling.”
“Show me then.”
“Why forget me,” said the pimp in smile, “Well, I know you're in a hurry.”
“It's nothing like that,” said Chandra embarrassed, “Tell me.”
“Not much sir," said the pimp as if to lighten Chandra's burden, “Just twenty bucks.”
“Okay.”
“Come on sir,” he said leading him into a nearby mohalla,
Asking Chandra to wait nearby a paan shop, the pimp said that he would go and sound
her. By the time he returned, finding Chandra impatient, the pimp whispered into his ears
that the woman would soon pass them by.
“Why all this fuss?” said Chandra in vexation.
“She seeks the man in man sir," said the pimp affecting admiration, “and scents his stuff
in the street, so to say from a mile. If you catch her eye, you know what I mean sir, you'll
have one hell of a time in her bed.”
Nauseated as he was with the ways of the whores, Chandra was bowled over by the
part-timer's novel way of soliciting. Wondering all the same whether she could reject him
on face value, crossing his fingers, he waited in anticipation. And soon the pimp pinched
him as a pretty dame neared them.
“How about her sir?” said the pimp in an undertone, “had you ever been with a better
one?”
“Well.”
“She signaled her 'yes' sir,” said the pimp, as she passed them by.
Relieved of his apprehension and whetted by his desire, Chandra's enamored eyes
followed her till she turned the bend. Pocketing his twenty bucks, the pimp led Chandra to
a nearby street corner and asked him to proceed forthwith to the fourth house on the left.
“You better take me to her,” said Chandra having thought better of it.
“Didn't I tell you, it"s all discreet with her, as discreet as it could be,” said the pimp
sounding intolerant. “Why there is no way could every Tom, Dick and Harry knock at her
door. Thank your stars that she would be waiting for you, having gone home through the
back alley; don't waste time.”
As the pimp retracted spiritedly into a by road of that mohalla, Chandra put his tentative
step forward for the dream rendezvous. But greeted by a padlock on the door, it dawned
on him that he was taken for a ride. Oh how frustrated he was, not only on account of his
insatiate urge but also at the ease with which he had allowed himself to be fooled.
„What a way to get cheated!" Chandra thought, amused all the same. „For all I know, she
could"ve been a mere passer-by. How smart of the fellow to have devised this ruse to
deceive the unsuspecting! It"s all due to the hush-hush ways of the paid sex that one tends
to give allowances to secretiveness. If only to eliminate the scope for cheating, given that it
is no less a crime, isn"t that a reason to legalize prostitution? But then, is not cheating a
grassroots phenomenon that makes us a nation of cheats, what with the leaders and the led
alike cutting corners?"
„Coming to the paid sex," he thought as he dragged his feet in disappointment, „what"s
the hitch if women opt for sex work when it"s okay with men making money on the sly?
What"s wrong if women choose the calling on their own? Let need or greed be the driving
force why should that bother any? Why not let them use their allures to make a living or
whatever? Won"t licensing sex workers dampen the recruiting agents? What with the
availability of the willing for the asking, where would be the need for the pimps to go to
lengths to lure the gullible? Won"t then flesh trade be conducted on a level playing ground?
But, sadly the unscrupulous lure the hapless into it to untold misery and depravity?"
„Well, it won"t happen in a hurry in our society," he sighed for the plight of the women
he frequented, „for we make a hypocritical bunch of a people. What an irony indeed that
the very brothel-mongers assume politically correct postures from the pulpits. What to say
about the so-called public opinion? Why, isn"t it the biases of the masses stemming from
their collective ignorance? Worse still, it is the outcome of the cumulative frustration of the
deprived who cannot afford what life offers. Don"t all men like to have a fling or two with
women and where else can they lay their eager hands on women than in brothels? But then,
it"s either the lack of the means or the fear of the decease that keeps men away from the
whores. And it is they who are at their vociferous best when it comes to condemning sex
scandals! Oh, how the indignation of hypocrisy comes to shape the policy of the State! Well,
that"s what politics is about and so God save the whores. And as things won"t change in a
hurry, it is as well that I"m on my guard meanwhile. But oh, what a woman she is!"
After a rendezvous or two with the alleged housewives, he thought he discerned the
difference between the amour for hire and the sex for sale. „The part-timers enjoy being
enjoyed," he reasoned, „and the whores neither enjoy nor give joy."
As if to back his reasoning, his networking led him to Prathima the fascinating.
A fabulous woman in her mid-twenties, she was married to a lout of a clerk albeit the
sole heir to a sizeable estate. And as his widowed father-in-law treated her as a daughter,
she didn"t have any inkling of the marital fate in store for her. But having been reared on a
diet of discipline, the death of his father, a couple of years after their marriage, made her
husband go wayward. Well, he gave up his job for a permanent place at the gambling table,
leaving her high and dry at home.
Well, it was not long before he had lost all, including his aptitude to work. And that
forced her to take up a job to make both ends meet for her and her parasitic man. Soon,
distressed by the detestable husband, she was distracted by the attentions of her boss to
lose her balance.
But it was not long before the peon at the office got wind of the affair pointed out that
while the boss was making merry with her allures, she had to bear the brunt of the rough
and tough. Why not she let him line up men who would pay for what the boss got it free.
And it was up to her to fix the toll for her sex passes that he would be issuing on her behalf.
When she protested, he said it was useless pretending to be Sita, having herself crossed the
lakshman rekha and driving home her vulnerability, he hinted at blackmail in case she failed
to fall in line. Lacking the needed moral rectitude to brush him aside, she agreed to go
along at last. Besides, she felt that in a way, those escapades might recompense for her
exploitation by her man and boss alike. When she took the plunge the fact that she was
childless helped her in her abandonment.
Her husband didn't fail to figure out her wayward ways soon enough - not from the
wear and tear of her frame but from the bulge of her purse. Though irked by the thought
that other men came to enjoy her, he came to see that without them there was no way he
could be a parasite on her and in spite of them, he still had all her body for his use. What
with her man acquiescing to her frequent outings, she had no qualms to suffer from in her
wantonness and that enabled her to bestow her amorous best on men she came to entertain.
Since that fetched her better price for her amorous services, ironically, it helped her serve
her man"s cause even better. And it was at this juncture that Chandra ca
me into her life.
While Prathima found him odd to look at, she was truly fascinated by his prowess at
lovemaking. As she turned eager towards him, so he sought her at every turn and that
made them feel that both needed each other for their gratification. So, she signed off the
peon and came to be tied up to him. Devoid of the distractions, she began to enjoy his
lovemaking even more and soon enough to his delight turned a devil in the bed. Thus,
while he found an admiring lover in her, she felt valued by his constancy to her company.
As the intimacy of their union made her throw caution to the winds in their coition, it was
only time before she missed her periods.
“I"m carrying,” she said that evening.
“Congrats, though that would leave me starving,” he said, and counting on his fingers
added in mock desperation. “Let me see from when to when…”
“You don"t seem to get it,” she said hesitantly. “You are its father.”
“How do you feel about it?” he asked tentatively.
“I would rather abort it.”
“After all, you"re married,” he said in surprise. “What"s the problem then? I"ll provide
for you both for the rest of your life.”
“Thank you, but …”
“What is the hitch?”
“It"s risky still.”
“What risk?”
“Why, of its exposure.”
“I don"t get you.”
“What if the child is after you,” she said sinking into his embrace as though to soothe
his hurt from her comment, “given your features, it won"t pass, and that"s my
predicament.”
“Oh, I see.”
“Don"t be upset," she said turning amorous. „No one deserves better to be the father of
my child than you, physically and emotionally speaking, that is. If only I'm your wife, it
would"ve been different.”
“Well,” he said, turning melancholic.
And for once, he failed to respond to her eager advances. That night, as his old doubts,
till then overshadowed by his exploits, resurfaced, Chandra went into contemplation.
„Her comment hurts, but how can I fault her for that?" he thought. „It"s not about the
abortion; it"s her affair, after all. But her reasoning is disconcerting, isn"t it? Well, what if,
